


loss

by santanico



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Alcohol, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santanico/pseuds/santanico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian and John share thoughts of their own personal losses after a long week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	loss

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Perda](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4556661) by [Rosetta (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Rosetta)



> this likely isn't my best work of recent but since it's completely i opted to post it anyway. partners talking about their feelings ?? sign me up

“What do you want me to say?”

Dorian leans back in his seat, resting his head and closing his eyes. “I don’t know,” he says, smirking as John glances over at him for a second before retraining his eyes on the road, “that I deserve your trust? That you should tell me how you’re feeling because I can’t get everything from databases and facts? That I’m always right?”

John snorts and keeps driving in silence until Dorian says, “Where are we going?”

“I’m driving, Dorian. Let me drive.”

Dorian nods and looks out his window. John turns on the radio but it’s mostly static as they reach the outskirts of the city.

“I still get phantom pains.”

Dorian sits up straight and looks at John head on, though John can only see him through the corner of his eye. He keeps his gaze on the road, paying careful attention to traffic signals and people driving around them. He notices a couple of speeders and can’t help but crack a smile every time a car slows down behind or beside the police vehicle.

“Phantom pains?” Dorian’s voice is low and quiet. John curls his hands around the steering wheel and shakes his head.

“Don’t pity me.”

“I don’t pity you, John,” Dorian says but his voice is still too soft, too unbelievable. John clenches his jaw.

“This is why I didn’t talk about it, okay?”

“You don’t sleep with it.”

“How the hell did you know that?” John turns to glare.

Dorian smiles. “I guessed. Guess I was right, too.”

“Screw you.”

“If you want to tell me, you can. I get the sense that you _do_ and you just don’t know how. That’s alright too. There are a lot of things that I don’t want to talk about either.”

“Like?”

“Being decommissioned. Being left alone.”

John can’t find a way to respond so instead he continues about his leg because it just seems right. “I wake up in the middle of the night and it feels like I have to scratch my foot but. There’s nothing there.”

“I imagine the synthetic limb doesn’t work exactly like I do.”

“Excuse me?” They’re on the highway now, headed further away from the city and into the dark.

“I can feel. Touch, heat. Not like the human body, I suppose, but it’s incredibly similar. My creator was very careful, and he wanted to create something – sensual. We aren’t human but we’re close, and that’s the entire point of the DRNs.” Dorian settles with his hands on his lap. “But your leg – the synthetic leg that you use – doesn’t feel. You stabbed it once, which was incredibly unsanitary.”

“I got it taken care of,” John says with a gruff grunt, flicking the turn signal and exiting the freeway.

“Good. Regardless, you can’t feel it. That leg is just…it exists but I imagine how it must feel. If I couldn’t feel my fingers…” Dorian trails off, stretching his hand in front of his face and wiggling his fingers, clenching them into a fist and then relaxing his grip. “It would be disorienting. It would throw me off, so I can’t imagine what it must do to you.”

“Then don’t bother trying,” John snaps. 

Dorian settles and John keeps driving. “Where are we going?”

John shrugs. “A bar, I guess. I need a drink.”

Dorian closes his eyes and shakes his head. “You’re really quite unruly. No wonder Captain Maldonado decided you needed someone equipped to empathize with your…situation.”

“Can you stop psychoanalyzing me? It’s been a stressful day.”

“Every day is stressful. Coping with alcohol certainly is a defense mechanism but it isn’t a healthy one.”

John makes a point not to reply. Dorian is quiet and John allows himself to relax and let his enjoy the bliss of silent companionship. It isn’t that Dorian isn’t nice to be around – John appreciates the closeness of someone who doesn’t honestly judge his habits – but sometimes the situations get too sharp, close to being a thorny touch that John doesn’t want to risk. And Dorian says nothing until they’ve pulled into a seedy parking lot in a suburb outside of the city and have entered a dimly lit bar. The man behind the bar stands up straight when he sees John’s uniform and tips his head in a polite gesture as he and Dorian sit down.

“Get me a scotch,” is all John says, and the bartender nods and says “Yes, sir,” and does as he’s told. John can’t resist smiling as he watches the bartender pour the drink and slide it across the table, ignoring new customers to look at Dorian for a moment.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Dorian says with a smile and the bartender nods. Maybe he doesn’t even know Dorian is a synthetic – John can imagine why someone who wasn’t used to dealing with synthetics would be caught off guard until they noticed the wiring near Dorian’s ear and his flawless and hairless skin. 

John tries not to think about Dorian’s skin too often, but it comes up occasionally.

John doesn’t touch his scotch at first which seems to incidentally prompt Dorian.

“Tell me about your coma.”

“What?” John turns and glares. Dorian doesn’t flinch, which is even more annoying. John wishes he would just goddamn _flinch_ like a normal human being. He always remembers after the fact that Dorian is not a normal human being at any rate.

“I’m asking you to tell me about your coma. I imagine being decommissioned is…similar. Darkness, emptiness, but no…memory of such. I close my eyes but sun still leaks through, so it’s not quite the same. When I recharge with the _MX models_ ,” – John notices that Dorian’s tone is more biting and bitter than it’s ever been, “I think of that more as sleep. A very uncomfortable and dull sleep. Do you dream, John?”

“Jesus Christ, one question at a time.” John picks up his shot glass and downs the scotch. Dorian is watching him with unblinking eyes. “I don’t know if it’s the same. Except that you don’t remember it, yeah. Sometimes I think I’m remembering somethin’, you know. Like almost waking up, or someone talking to me, or a dream, but…” He pauses and swallows again, trying to ignore the burn in his throat. “Anna was gone and I was oblivious. Couldn’t blame her, I guess.”

“John…”

“Look. I don’t know what happened yet but damn if I’m not gonna find out. It just. Takes time.”

Dorian hums. 

“They should have let me die.”

Dorian stiffens but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t jump to defend John’s life. John feels a deep sense of satisfaction and comfort from Dorian’s lack of response.

“I was dead for seventeen months. Came back to a precinct that barely knew me and a partner I couldn’t trust.” Dorian frowns. “Not you, dumbass. Couldn’t trust you at first either, but it was the MX. Good to know you hate them as much as I do.”

“There’s a terror about their silence, I find. Maybe because they are like me. They look like you John, but they function as I do.”

“They _do not_ look like me.”

“You know what I meant.”

John waves the bartender over and orders another scotch. He ignores Dorian’s frowns in his direction as the bartender pours him the drink. “Here you go.”

“You’re a good man.”

Dorian shakes his head.

“Don’t be so judgmental.”

“Just because you aren’t on the job doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take safety precautions. Anything could happen.”

“You don’t think I know that?” John downs the drink, mostly for the pleasant burning sensation that travels through his body and curls in his stomach. Warmth that’s too harsh to be meaningful. “I was out cold for so long, and they brought me back and they expected nothing from me. They used the word ‘trauma’ a lot, the doctors, you know? They told me that the experience had been tragic, that the loss of a limb was still traumatizing, that just because technologies were better didn’t mean the experiences weren’t hard. I was – am – angry. Maldonado gave me a chance and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s some experiment of hers, so she could somehow get _you_ awake and keep me around. Believe me, I didn’t want to come back to being a cop. Thought maybe I could just…live. Sleep. Eat. Drive to the market on the weekends. Be content.” He stops and shakes his head. The bartender is watching them out of the corner of his eye but he doesn’t approach.

“You can’t be content. Not alone.”

“Anna disappeared. Without a trace. That happens so rarely now…it’s so easy to track missing persons now, to figure out what went wrong or motive. Guess that never happened with Anna, and no one was interested in opening her case again. Easier to let it go.”

“John…”

“A test. A test to find out if the DRNs were really capable of being cops. You never explained what it was.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

John glances over to Dorian but Dorian doesn’t give away any emotion in his stoic expression. It’s admirable. John lets out a breath and grabs his jacket from where he had placed it on the counter, standing up and waving at the bartender who nods in his direction. Dorian follows him out the door without question but grabs John’s arm to stop him when he starts heading to the driver’s side of the car.

“There’s no way I’m letting you drive,” Dorian says, fingers wrapped around John’s upper arm.

“Seriously, dude?” John says, trying to yank his arm from Dorian’s firm grasp. “I’m not drunk.”

Dorian uses his inhuman strength to pull John around and stare him in the face. John’s breath ends up caught low in his chest, tightening every muscle in his body as Dorian places a second hand on his other arm, keeping him still. Dorian’s eyes are that same steely gray-blue, reflecting the neon lights hanging in the bar window. The unnatural flash in his gaze is dangerous and John doesn’t argue, only nods. Dorian steers him to the passenger side of the car and even opens the door, and John gets in and buckles his seatbelt in silence.

It’s jarring to see Dorian in the front seat, comfortable and smiling, and John thinks maybe Dorian wasn’t just being protective. 

John watches as Dorian pulls out of the bar like any person would, craning his neck to look over his shoulder and bending his body to make sure they’re safe. John closes his eyes as they pull onto the freeway.

“The leg’s a reminder,” John admits in a quiet voice, shifting and settling back into his seat. “It’s a reminder of that trauma and it’s not one I can…get rid of.”

“You’re surrounded by reminders,” Dorian says in the same soft tone. “Being a cop is a constant reminder of the sacrifices you’ve had to make. I can’t say I understand what sacrifice means, beyond the literal definitions and the ideas that it comes from. Sacrifice is supposed to be heroic.”

“Is it?” John interrupts with a weak snort. “I don’t feel like a fuckin’ hero.” He can already feel his head going fuzzy and he’s so tired, glad Dorian’s at the wheel because otherwise they’d both be dead. “And damn if they don’t make sure I know it…”

“Perhaps you did make a quick judgment, John.” Dorian’s voice feels far away and simultaneously right there, a protective shield surrounding John’s mind. “And perhaps lives were lost and perhaps your guilt affects your treatment of those around you. Death isn’t as meaningful to you anymore, John.”

“Isn’t it?” John hums and chuckles. “Tell that to all the terror.”

“Are you afraid of death, John?”

“Yeah, man. I mean…I barely escaped it once.”

“So you aren’t guilty?”

John starts shaking his head and grunts. “That’s not…what I mean. ’Course I’m guilty…those guys are dead because of me.”

“They aren’t dead _because of you_ , John. They’re dead because they were cops and things went haywire.”

“Thanks, bud.”

He hears Dorian laugh under his breath, and it sounds so far away.

“I’m taking you home, John.”

“Where are you gonna go?”

Dorian doesn’t answer, or at least John doesn’t hear him answer. He says, “Stay with me tonight,” and Dorian hums, maybe amused. John’s eyelids are heavy, and his body is sinking into his seat. He’s tired, and it’s not the alcohol that’s overwhelming him. The thrill of no responsibility, of waking up tomorrow and it being a classic Saturday morning. He can sleep and he can forget.

If Dorian stays, they’ll figure it out. Maybe Dorian will stay forever.


End file.
